"Your maturity is a sometime thing, weak at best," Clarkham said. "Yet you don't seem unreasonable.

And your ambition isn't nearly as strong as mine. Perhaps we can discuss things, and you can realize how hopeless your prospects really are and how much harm you might cause if you try to fight both Tarax and myself."

"All right," Michael said.

"We're in one of my test environments," Clarkham explained. "Like an artist's sketch. It's part of my larger world. It's quite accomplished, I think. It has firm roots and mimics most of the complexity of our birth universe. It is not nearly so large, of course."

"Is it complete?" Michael asked.

"No," Clarkham admitted. "Come with me. We'll find a cool place."

They walked over the fields. Michael felt the quality and density of this test-world with the palms of his hands. It was indeed fine, almost indistinguishable from Earth. He could not do something this powerful and real - not yet, perhaps not ever.

Yet he itched to try. The part of himself that aspired to be a mage - the ultimate poet, creator of worlds - was impressed but not overawed.

In a depression within the prairie lay a small town hammered together from gray planks and splintered posts. On one side of the single dirt street was a barber shop, a saloon and a hotel, on the other a gunshop and a feed and general store, all deserted. Michael stretched his mental fingers wide, searching for the facts in this world he might need to know, and he curled those fingers back empty. This world was a test case, finely wrought, but not profound.

Derivative. For the first time since he had swallowed the wine, Michael smiled. Clarkham saw the edge of that smile, and his face became thinner, nose sharper, cheeks paler.

They walked the single dirt street, and Clarkham held open the swinging doors to the saloon. Michael passed through into welcome, cool shadow. Clarkham pulled out a seat at a rickety round table, and Michael sat.

"This is all I have," Clarkham said, indicating with his arms the room and the world beyond, and not just one world, but the others Michael could still feel at the back of his palate. "You helped remove the rest from me. I cannot return to Earth now. Not in person, not physically."

Michael thought of the footprints on the dusty floor. Whose, then? A Sidhe - perhaps Tarax himself, or Biri - clearing out Clarkham's gate to the Realm, disposing of Lamia and Tristesse - carrying them to the Tippett Hotel... Leaving them there as a warning to the Ban, perhaps, that humans must not cross there...

Would he ever know? Probably not.

"I could not go to the Realm, but now that's dead too, and soon the Earth with it, no? So no regrets.

You've taken nothing from me I didn't deserve to lose. Complacency is a mage's worst enemy.

Complacency and lack of vigilance."

"The Earth is dying?" Michael asked, feeling like a child again, asking questions of a teacher. The role he wishes upon me. Power lies in placing others in their weakest postures.

"Tarax didn't do a very good job of bringing his ship up on the reef, did he? Pushed out the captain and then couldn't navigate. He forgot to toss away the unnecessary, the deadly cargo - the underpinnings of the Realm. Chaos, the mist of creation. Now they pollute the Earth. Soon anything will be possible. When anything is possible, nothing is real. Might as well spread turpentine across a fresh oil painting."

Clarkham sat across the table from Michael and folded his arms, looking strong and young and satisfied, his face dark in the saloon's cool gloom. "His qualifications to be the mage of the new Earth seem weaker to all of us day by day. Perhaps even to himself."

"All of us?"

"The Serpent still dreams. And who can say there aren't others? They might be less apparent in this than even you. And you have moments when you don't even want to be a mage." His smile was perfectly candid and friendly. "The contest must be decided soon. We all have loyalties to our people, and without the people, what use is a world? Like Adonna, I once considered populating my own worlds, but..." He sighed. "You've seen the results. By the way, how did you escape? Mine was a particularly nasty trap."

Michael saw no reason for lies. "Tarax released me."

"On what condition?"

"Part of a pact. I would train his daughter, and he would tell me where you've hidden Kristine."

Clarkham's smile broadened. "Interesting. The law of mages. No candidate shall harm a fellow candidate or lessen his chances. But as you see, I don't necessarily follow those rules. Tarax's daughter - a Sidhe? I seem to recall his woman was a pure Sidhe. Adonna made the same mistake." He leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. "Thirsty?"

Michael shook his head. He did not want the taste of the wine diluted or washed away. "Why is it a mistake?"

"It can be a great mistake for a mage. If you choose not to be a mage - if you sensibly decline this position you've half unwittingly put yourself in - then there is no threat. But I tell too much. You are still my enemy."

Michael nodded. "Yes," he said. "You killed Tommy."

"His death was easy. He killed himself. Do you know humans, Michael? You think you are one of them.

You are, mostly. But you don't know them. Have you followed your history lessons, read the newspapers?

We are not fighting each other in order to serve an exalted race, Michael. We strive to serve animals...

unprincipled, cruel, blind and willful. When the Sidhe last left Earth for the Realm, humans were already on their merry path to making it unlivable even for themselves. Now they have the power to destroy everyone.

"Humans are willful and blind. They do not appreciate. They look upon those possessed by genius and * chew them over and spit them out. Artists and poets are just so many..." His face had paled again, and he brought color back with another broad smile. "Their scientists have the upper hand. Taming a garden gone to seed."

"The Sidhe tried to take magic away from us," Michael said. "Without magic, we could only learn how to use the world. The scientists have made us strong."

" Us?" Clarkham mimicked incredulously. "You rank yourself with the scientists?"

"I would hope to," Michael said.

"A candidate mage condoning the worship of a corrupt and runaway world. Amazing how far humans have fallen."

Michael suddenly felt a surge of boredom. He pushed it aside lest it dull his apprehension and sense of peril. "You are about to try to strike a deal with me," he said.

"I am?" Clarkham feigned surprise.

"You are," Michael said, the insane self-assurance coming to the fore again. So much to keep in balance.

"All right. But it might not be the deal you imagine. Your talent is strong but undeveloped. We could help each other. Alone, I can create a suitable world... But together, the three of us can control Tarax's ambitions and create a new Earth for all the races, or as many as will accept us."

"Three?"

"You have a certain attraction to Tarax's daughter. Her power can be most useful, if handled properly.

And I can keep the worst from happening between the two of you, once you merge." His eyes seemed to cloud. "Euphemisms. Once she seduces you, or you her."

Michael made as if to consider this, but there were alarms in his head. What he had felt in Shiafa...

Tonn's wife on the Blasted Plain. Connected. Horribly connected. Those who aspire to become mages...

"What about her loyalty to Tarax?"

"I doubt she feels any loyalty."

Michael glanced down at the worn-smooth table top. "What kind of world would you make for all the races?"

"The world-building is relatively easy," Clarkham said. "It's control of the world's inhabitants mat causes trouble. Humans are especially difficult. They would likely start tinkering with the very foundations, unless they're kept tightly reined in. Sidhe might be more manageable. At least the Sidhe have a sense of their limits."

"How would you control them?"

"Rigidly," Clarkham said, eyes narrowing. "They have opposed me. They must never be that strong or willful again."

"Isn't there any other way?"

Clarkham shook his head slowly. "If you think otherwise, you're being foolish. Human history, Michael.

Wars and exterminations and crimes and cruelty. Distorted minds and distorted societies. I doubt you have any idea of the depth of depravity humans are capable of."

"The Sidhe are responsible for many of our problems."

"Probably," Clarkham conceded. "But the roots are still there. The Sidhe merely tried to train the branches. And whoever caused the problems, as mage - I still have to solve them. Rigorous weeding and trimming. Could you face up to that?" Michael did not answer. He pushed his chair away from the table.

The wine's finish was losing definition. "If I cooperate and bring Shiafa's power to you, will you free Kristine?"

Clarkham made a magnanimous swing of one hand. "She is of no use to me except as a means to control * you. I certainly do not lust after her."

"Nobody implied that you did," Michael said, his face flushing.

Clarkham stood and leaned across the table on his extended arms, fingers splayed against the dark wood.

"Do not try to join this conflict, unless you join on my side. You have certain abilities but no sophistication. You do not know the potentials. Whatever you do, you must not oppose me. I've taken your measure, Michael Perrin. I know your weaknesses."

Michael nodded agreeably.

"We cannot afford the virtues of patience and kindness and honor," Clarkham continued, his eyes contemplating the distances beyond Michael. "If we are to be mages, that is."

Michael's palms tingled. He lifted one hand as if to rub his nose and saw a pearly excrescence beginning there. "You've always wanted to be a mage, haven't you?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I didn't," Michael said. "I've never really had a choice." That much had become quite clear to him. He rubbed his tongue against the back of his palate, drawing forth saliva to further dilute the taste of the wine.

"Consider my offer seriously. The alternatives are not pleasant," Clarkham said.

The saloon darkened, and the walls of the basement returned. The bottle lay spilled on the floor, where it had slipped out of his hands. Michael bent to pick up the cork and reinsert it, but there was no liquid left.

When he straightened, he saw a spot of color on the opposite wall. The wall itself seemed intercely grainy, detailed, every speck and shadow of it clear. Michael squinted, and the spot of color resolved itself into a sleeved arm and hand. As his eyes swept up the arm, he seemed to paint with his gaze a flat figure on the wall, dressed in white garments that partook, in their transparency, of some of the wall's concrete gray. Still flat but now complete, the figure's face became animated. Michael backed away; he dimly recognized the Sidhe.

"You must think your house very full," the Sidhe whispered, his voice a mere vibration of the wall.

"Tonn," Michael breathed.

"I had hoped to bring you more, but even a mage cannot survive the forces I've faced. This is a very weak shadow to bring you, a weak bequest..." The figure smiled and seemed with that expression to almost lift from the concrete. Michael pressed close to the stair rail.

"You cannot best the Isomage without far greater knowledge than you currently possess. There is only one place for you to gain this knowledge... the Serpent. This shadow cannot convey it to you. Adonna favored you for some time; you sensed that? You hold much promise, and the others... well, Adonna had reasons for being less fond of them. You must take what the Serpent has; he will not give it to you without his own freight of past evil. But take it you can, if you are careful, without breaking the law of mages. You must act soon... This is the last shadow the Realm can conjure. There is no forest with wood enough to contain a mage."

The shadow of Tonn faded as if bleached by the cellar's darkness rather than light, until nothing but the grainy wall remained and even the sharpness of detail blurred.

Michael swallowed. Will I ever become as insubstantial as that?

Chapter Thirty-Three.

On the first floor, Michael knelt before the mage of the Cledar. The bird regarded him straight on, nictitating every few seconds. "You brought me into this," Michael said, half-accusing.

Better to be a part of change than to simply stand aside and react. The bird had abandoned spoken words, communicating with Michael by evisa.

"How much of Waltiri were you?"

Enough to love Golda. This war has made strange demands on us all.

"Did you know Tonn's shadow was here?"

Yes.

"Were you cooperating with him all along?"

Our goals evolved in the same direction, separately.

"And why are you waiting here?"

For the end, or for you to fulfil your promise.

Michael stood and shook his head slowly. "I'm not the boy you lured into Clarkham's house. I've lost so many selves since then, I hardly know who I am."

That is the curse of a leader.

"I've never been a leader," Michael said softly. His eyes misted over, and he looked around the living room, covered with birds of all kinds, from large white owls and red-tailed hawks to pigeons and sparrows. There were only a few of the robin-colored, crow-sized birds the Dopsos had once seen covering the house on a misty morning. "You're much younger than the Serpent," Michael said. "Are you as old as Tonn?"

Older, now.

"The writing... it contains the terms of your curse?"